The Senate is getting ready to vote on five nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). They should confirm the whole package and get the NLRB functioning again. They are also voting on several other nominees from judges to cabinet positions. If Republicans filibuster to obstruct these, it is time to fix the filibuster. We just had an election and the results were decisive. Republicans must stop obstructing democracy.

A “Full Package” Of NLRB Nominees

President Obama has nominated 5 people to serve on the NLRB. Two of these are “management side” (i.e. anti-union) Republicans. Labor and other groups are urging the Senate to confirm all of these nominees as a “package” so the NLRB can get back to work. Working people need and deserve a functioning NLRB, and confirmation of the “full package” of nominees will provide that stability

400 professors and 125 leaders nationwide have signed letters urging the Senate to confirm these nominees and get the NLRB functioning.

More than two dozen women’s organizations have also written urging confirmation of the nominees, (from AFL-CIO blog),

The National Labor Relations Board has long worked to ensure the rights of employees to bargain collectively, if they choose to do so. This work is particularly meaningful for women… Unions have always been important to advancing women’s economic security. Union wage and benefit structures are typically more transparent than those for non-union workplaces, which in turn helps to decrease wage discrimination… working families need a functioning, fully-staffed National Labor Relations Board to protect their right to an important strategy in the fight for economic security: collective bargaining.

NLRB Not Functioning

Republican Senators have been obstructing the NLRB from functioning, on purpose, so companies can fire union organizers, etc. The make more money by keeping unions out so wages are low, benefits are minimal-to-none, and unemployment high. But this is bad for 99% of us and bad for the economy. The country needs these nominees confirmed so we can start getting back to normal.

Watch this video of Marcus Hedger describing how he was treated and then illegally fired for union activities. The NLRB ruled that he should get his job back and the company just ignored that, saying the NLRB doesn’t have enough Board members to enforce the rules. So he has lost his house. The company broke the law, then ignored the NLRB’s ruling, and this is happening all across the country — more than 22,000 workers — while Republicans keep the NLRB from functioning.

Other Nominees

The Senate is also awaiting confirmation of other nominees, like Thomas Perez to head the Department of Labor and Gina McCarthy to the Environmental Protection Agency. Republicans have already filibustered Caitlin J. Halligan, keeping her from becoming a federal appeals court judge. Next week the Senate will vote on the nomination of Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (Republicans have pledged to obstruct any nominee to head up that agency.)

It is essential that these nominees are confirmed so the government can function for We the People. The obstruction has to stop.

Obstruction And Filibuster

The Senate is dysfunctional and needs reform. Republicans are obstructing everything as a strategy to turn Americans against President Obama and against government itself. As of the end of the last Congressional session there were had been more than 380 filibusters. Now there have been several more.

We just had a decisive election but nothing is moving forward. This is intentional obstruction of democracy. It is time to fix the Senate.

Fix The Senate Now is a coalition of organizations asking that Senate rules be changed to make it more difficult to filibuster. Specifically, restore the rule to make them talk. If they feel the need to filibuster — and filibusters are sometimes the right thing to do — they should do what the public expects and stand there and talk, slowing the process and allowing the public to rally and show their approval or disapproval of what is going on. That is how democracy should function.

What You Can Do

Visit Fix The Senate Now (also on Facebook).

The AFL-CIO is asking people to “text NLRB to 235246 and ask the Senate to confirm the board nominations now. (Standard message and data rates may apply.) You also may call your senators at 1-888-264-6154.” Also click this to “Tell your senators to confirm President Obama’s NLRB nominations to make sure workers’ rights are protected.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) and is uring the Senate to “Give Us 5” — “even if that means changing the Senate rules on nominations to break through the gridlock.” See their fact sheet on this.

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The Senate Heath, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will vote Thursday on President Obama’s nomination of Thomas Perez, currently head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to head the Department of Labor. There are a majority of Democrats on this committee, so Republicans will not be able to obstruct this nomination from making it out of the committee. But then Perez moves to the full Senate for a confirmation vote, where he faces an almost-certain obstructive filibuster.

In recent days Republicans have blocked Environmental Protection agency nominee Gina McCarthy by boycotting a committee vote. With New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg out due to illness, this kept the committee from having sufficient members to hold the vote. They are also blocking judges from confirmation (and even nomination). Earlier they filibustered Caitlin J. Halligan, nominated to the federal appeals court judge in the District of Columbia. They are filibustering other nominees as well as refusing to participate in the nomination process entirely (usually senators recommend nominees from their state to the president but Republicans are refusing to participate), leaving 82 judicial vacancies.

The public is starting to become aware of the extent of the obstruction that has been occurring – Republicans filibustering everything and everyone. So Republicans are moving from blatant obstruction to obstruction-under-cover, like the boycott of the committee vote on McCarthy. One new tactic is to shower nominees with written questions — up to numbers in the thousands — and then complaining that they either didn’t get sufficient responses or are not satisfied with the responses they did get. EPA nominee McCarthy received over 1,000 questions, 653 from just one senator.

So Perez will likely be obstructed from becoming the Labor Secretary, McCarthy will continue to be blocked for EPA and crucial judicial vacancies will remain unfilled.

And then there is the situation with the NLRB… Republicans are also obstructing nominations to the National Labor Relations Board, to keep the agency from being able to function. Please click through to Next Week’s Opportunity To Get Our Labor Board Operating Again for the story.

It is up to all of us to help make the public aware of the obstruction that is occurring. Then the public can do their part, by either putting pressure on Republicans to stop the obstruction, or letting them know they approve. Which one do you think the public will choose?
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A NY Times editorial says Republicans need public pressure to get them to stop obstructing … everything. Meanwhile NY Times and other news coverage tends to obscure the source and extent of the problem and the damage it is doing to the country. Just months after a decisive election the country is paralyzed, the will of the people is thwarted and the information required to mobilize the pubic to take needed action is not forthcoming.

On Sunday, May 12, the NY Times ran an editorial, Who Can Take Republicans Seriously? The editorial concluded: “Only when the Republican Party feels public pressure to become a serious partner can the real work of governing begin.”

But news reports, even in the NY Times, tend to obscure the source of the obstruction, often even omitting the very words “filibuster” and “obstruction.”

For example, on the same day as that editorial the NY Times carried this story about Republican obstruction of nominees, with the headline instead calling it “delay:” G.O.P. Delays on Nominees Raise Tension. The story begins by telling the public there is “resistance in the Senate.”

President Obama’s latest cabinet-level nominees are running into deep resistance in the Senate, pitching Democrats and Republicans into another tense standoff over White House appointments.

What does the reader get from that? Government isn’t working, but nothing about why and especially who. The second paragraph — for those still reading — begins to tell some of the story.

Just days after Republicans used Senate rules to block two nominees from moving to the next step in the confirmation process despite the fact that both have the support of a majority of senators, Democrats are planning to force committee votes without Republican consent.

Finally, in the 3rd paragraph, the word “filibuster” comes up…

If Democrats do push the nominees through to the full Senate, they would almost certainly set off a Republican filibuster, which would jeopardize the confirmations and, for now, leave vacancies at the top of two federal agencies.

In the 6th paragraph the extent of the problem emerges,

Nominees at all levels of Washington’s bureaucracy — 117 of them in all, including cabinet secretaries, judges and members of obscure oversight boards — are facing delays.

The NY Times story was … OK. If you read it carefully you will eventually get the idea of what is going on in Washington. Compare to Politico, President Obama stares down the second-term curse, in which obstruction of democracy becomes, “clever and determined Republican resistance on nearly every front,” and, “Obama’s string of bad news.”

Surprisingly, Fox News is telling the story. Saturday’s From boycotts to delays, Republicans using tough tactics to disrupt Obama agenda gets right to the point,

Republicans are using tough new tactics to disrupt President Obama’s second-term agenda and appointments, beginning to step up their fight six months after the party’s presidential election defeat.

Minority Republicans in the Senate this week boycotted a committee vote on the president’s nominee for EPA administrator, Gina McCarthy. Separately, they delayed another panel vote on the president’s pick for Labor secretary, Thomas Perez, for a second time.

The moves were blasted by Democrats as continued obstruction by an obstinate party.

Of course, Fox understands that their readers want this obstruction, so they come out and tell it like it is.

In the United States the power is supposed to be vested in We, the People. But if We, the People aren’t adequately informed we can’t exercise our power to set things right.

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President Obama has nominated five people to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Two are Republicans. All are waiting for confirmation by the Senate. Let your Senators know these nominees should be confirmed so the NLRB can get back to work.

What Is The NLRB?

The NLRB is the agency that “safeguards employees’ rights to organize and to determine whether to have unions as their bargaining representative. The agency also acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices committed by private sector employers and unions.”

The NLRB supervises elections to form or decertify unions in the workplace. It investigates charges that employees, unions or employers violated rules over labor practices and rules on the charges. It works to get problems resolved rather than taken to court. And finally, when the NLRB has issued a ruling that is ignored it can take the parties to court.

But if the NLRB is prevented from operating there is no one to make sure that the rules for labor practices are being enforced. This hurts workers and companies.

Background Of The Nomination Battle

Individual workers have little power when up against giant corporations. They can ask for better pay, benefits and working conditions, please, and the giant companies can just say, “you’re fired” if they do — and working people know that. However, when the employees all band together it gives them collective power. It’s the old story of how a person can break a single stick, but when all the sticks are bundled together the person is not able to break them. Banding together the workers have the power to get better wages, benefits and working conditions.

The other side of this is that big companies can make a lot of money if they can keep their workers from organizing unions. So they use their money and power to try to stop workers from organizing unions.

Because the economy does better when people have better wages, benefits and working conditions, and because strikes and lawsuits can plug things up, it is the law that workers have the right to form unions and bargain collectively to balance out the immense power of the giant corporations.

This is why the NLRB battle matters. For years elected officials allied with anti-union businesses worked to block the NLRB from operating, so that workers are not able to form unions and existing unions are not able to enforce labor rules. At the same time these elected officials worked to get anti-union judges into the courts and block impartial judges from being confirmed. This enabled the giant companies to make more money — and working people less money. (Meanwhile as wages dropped nationally the economy slowed and slowed.)

A strategy unfolded, in which big companies would put up money to elect anti-union candidates. Then these anti-union elected officials blocked nominees to the NLRB and filled the courts up with anti-union judges. Senator Lindsay Graham, for example, has vowed to block all nominees to the NLRB, saying “the NLRB as inoperable could be considered progress.”

Over time this strategy meant that there were too few people confirmed to sit on the NLRB, and too many anti-union judges in the courts.

Timeline

After President Obama took office anti-union Senators rolled out a strategy of blocking confirmation of any appointees to the NLRB to keep the agency from having a quorum so it could not operate.

In 2010 the anti-union judges on the Supreme Court ruled that the NLRB could not issue rulings without at least three confirmed members.

Anti-union Senators continued to block confirmations to the NLRB.

In January, 2012 President Obama made recess appointments to the NLRB to enable it to operate again.

In January, 2013 anti-union judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) were unconstitutional.

Today’s Situation

Anti-union companies are refusing to comply with NLRB rules by allowing union elections or bargaining with unionized employees, thereby making money by keeping wages low. More than 85 companies are now challenging NLRB rulings that went against them, claiming the rulings shouldn’t count — even though they were found to have violated labor practices.

The result is that the rights of American workers to organize unions and bargain for better pay, benefits and working conditions are unprotected, and the big companies are taking advantage of this. Wages are stagnant and benefits are disappearing. Obviously the economy does better when people are paid better and have better working conditions, so this is also holding the economy back.

What Next?

Next week on May 16 a Senate committee will hold a hearing on the nominees to the NLRB. Anti-union senators are expected to try to block the nominations because a lot of money for the giant corporations rides on keeping the NLRB from operating.

Then the full Senate will consider the nominees.

What is needed now is for people to contact their Senators and let them know they need to confirm all of these nominees, Democratic and Republican alike, so the NLRB can get back to work.

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There was a flaw in the “sequester” — it hit some people who are not poor. The sequester budget cuts caused delays for business travelers (and members of Congress) and the Congress acted in hours. Meanwhile the elderly, poor, homeless, disabled, hungry and unemployed experience dramatic cutbacks. And 750,000 layoffs in 2013 will result.

Congress Helps Business Flyers In Hours

The sequester is forcing dramatic cuts in Head Start, Meals on Wheels, Children’s Health Insurance Program, Homeless housing program, Legal Aid, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), unemployment checks. Too bad for them.

But Congress acted in hours when business flyers faced some flight delays.

Business flyers faced delays on Monday, made noise on Tuesday, legislators thought heard it Wednesday and Thursday: Senate votes unanimously to fix FAA furloughs, Friday: House passes bill to end FAA furloughs, now goes to Obama to sign.

Not just affluent business flyers, CEOs, too. Reuters: Congress passes plan to ease flight delays,

They had also faced anger from airline CEOs whose companies had mounted a grassroots campaign through a website called dontgroundamerica.com, encouraging Americans to send messages to Congress and the White House.

PS to Reuters: Actually CEOs mounting a campaign is called “astroturf” not “grassroots.”

The Poor, Hungry, Homeless, Disabled, Elderly — Not So Much

NBC Connecticut: Sequester Cuts Hit Low-Income Families,

Melissa Rothkugel, 28, of Bristol says the sequester has rendered her homeless.

“I feel very, very defeated from the sequester cuts,” she said. “I [have been] literally out on the streets. I was staying in my car. I went and got a tent and was sleeping in a tent.”

Click to see the video with this story.

Austerity Discredited, Deficit Down By Half, Congress CUTS!

Earlier this week, Deficit Falling, Austerity Discredited But Destructive Sequester Continues,

The deficit is already down by half. The intellectual foundation for austerity turned out to be a spreadsheet error combined with cherrypicked data. In Europe austerity has brought nothing but stagnation, recession, depression and suffering. But our own “sequester” ramps up with disastrous effects — unless it affects the affluent.

Also this week, Deficit Falling Even More Dramatically, Few Know It,

There is no reason for the sequester to continue. But it continues. Dean Baker explains why, in Deficits Are Bad and the Sun Goes Around the Earth,

…many people can profit from slow growth and high unemployment. The after-tax profit share of GDP is at its highest level more than 60 years. For those who own lots of stock and are at the top of the income ladder, times are good. These people may see efforts to lower unemployment as posing a risk. With lower unemployment workers may be able to get a larger share of productivity growth. This may be good for most of the country and mean increased economic growth, but it would mean less for the one percent.

Once again: “Many people can profit from slow growth and high unemployment.” So here we are.

Update – Paul Krugman also explains why we still face austerity even though it has been completely discredited, destroyed Europe and our own deficit is falling fast, in The 1 Percent’s Solution,

The wealthy favor cutting federal spending on health care and Social Security — that is, “entitlements” — while the public at large actually wants to see spending on those programs rise.

You get the idea: The austerity agenda looks a lot like a simple expression of upper-class preferences, wrapped in a facade of academic rigor. What the top 1 percent wants becomes what economic science says we must do.

It’s what the 1% want, so it’s what the 1% get. And they get it in a hurry.

No One Deserves This

Don’t let congress off the hook. Next week we will mount a campaign: what Congress did for business flyers Congress should do for every American hurt by the sequester. No one deserves this.

For now: Click here to tell Washington: Repeal the Sequester.

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Today, the Campaign for America’s Future is joining 100 other organizations in delivering a message to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell: Enough is enough. End the obstruction. Stop the constant abuse of the filibuster.

The group Fix the Senate Now is collecting signatures on a petition that it plans to take to Capitol Hill. (Sign here.) The petition declares that “the compromise on rules reform that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to at the start of this Congress is clearly not working. We still do not have a functioning Senate that passes legislation and confirms nominations in a timely manner.”

That compromise was an agreement with McConnell that was supposed to end filibusters against “motions to proceed,” or votes to proceed to debate legislation. It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster, and in the previous Congress Republicans forced the introduction of 115 motions to end filibusters; only 41 succeeded.

This time was supposed to be different, but so far it isn’t. We’re four months into the 113th Congress, and already there have been 10 motions to end filibusters, with only 5 succeeding. That’s more than motions than were needed to file in any of the entire two-year Senate sessions between 1917 and 1970.

The talking filibuster that we saw in March when Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., took to the floor to filibuster the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director remains the exception. More routine is the silent filibuster, when a member can block legislation and it just slips discreetly into limbo. Objecting members do not have to stand on the Senate floor and justify their objection.

The country saw once again how conservative obstruction has broken the Senate when the body could not even agree to debate the merits of gun control legislation. As Richard Eskow pointed out in a post earlier this week, the Senate did not technically vote against gun control legislation. A minority used its power to keep the Senate from even putting the legislation up for debate. So routine has this become that news stories often refer to a measure “not receiving the 60 votes needed for passage,” when every 6th-grade civics student learns that in a 100-member Senate, you only need 51 votes to pass a bill. But you need 60 votes in today’s Republican-obstructed Congress to agree that a bill gets a chance to be voted on.

The consequences are sweeping, as noted in an email message by the Fix the Senate Now group. “Our federal court system is in crisis because judges cannot be appointed. Agencies that safeguard workers rights, ensure the safety of our air and water and make sure that banks don’t mislead consumers cannot function effectively because key leaders can’t be confirmed.”

Also on the casualty list: Several measures designed to help stimulate the economy and create jobs. Today’s anemic economic growth and recession-level unemployment rates are in part due to Senate paralysis.

Reid needs to find a way to do what he could have done more easily at the beginning of the session: Insist on a talking filibuster in which members have to physically hold the floor in order to block a bill, and insist on strict time limits on debates of motions to proceed and executive and non-Supreme Court judicial nominations.

For years now, Senate right-wingers have turned a feature intended to protect minority rights into an instrument of minority tyranny. It is time to end the tyranny and fix the Senate. If you agree, support this petition.

What does it mean to be an American? What does it mean to be an American corporation? An article in the Wall Street Journal the other day should trigger questions like these.

WSJ: Domestic-Based Multinationals Hiring Overseas,

Multinational companies based in the U.S. boosted their global work forces in 2011 almost entirely by hiring workers overseas, underscoring the slow growth in the U.S. job market.

… The paltry hiring at home reflects where multinational companies are focusing their attention. Stronger economic growth in overseas markets in Asia and Latin America is driving their expansion, reinforcing their shift toward cheaper labor or closer access to customers.

The U.S. parents of multinational firms account for about one-fifth of total private U.S. employment. Since 1999, employment by U.S. multinationals is down by 1.1 million inside the U.S., while it is up by 3.8 million overseas.

The hiring by American companies is not happening in the U.S. At the same time these companies are holding $1.7 trillion of profits outside of the country, away from their own shareholders and our economy to avoid their taxes, while pushing to dramatically lower the taxes they pay us – and even to get out of paying any taxes at all on money they make outside of the country!

Why Do We Have Corporations?

Why do We the People even have laws that allow corporations and give them special benefits? The answer obviously is for our common benefit — why else would we do it? The corporate form of a business enables the company to easily obtain capital from investors, in order to accomplish large-scale projects that benefit us. To encourage this we give these entities special privileges. For example, we limit liability which means the investors are not held liable for the actions of the company – they won’t lose more than their investment if the company gets sued for some reason. We provide a system that helps them obtain financing, insurance, market liquidity and all kinds of things to help those investors get a good return on their money.

Benefit: We the People want railroads, but it takes a lot of money to build and operate a railroad. And our system wants private companies to do the work of building and operating railroads instead us just doing it ourselves. So we set up a way for a private company to gather investment from lots of people.

Why Do We Want “American” Corporations?

Why don’t we just contract with any old corporation that comes along to get things done for us? Who cares what country these entities are from? Why should we as a country want to encourage and support our American corporations? Because American corporations make money for us. That is the whole point.

Other countries see themselves as countries, and compete with us as a country, for their benefit and the benefit of their people. As much as some of us might want a world in which we all cooperate and share and have “free trade” and other ideals and dreams, the fact is that other countries understand themselves as countries. Companies and industries located in other countries are operated to benefit their people. Their governments give them special benefits to help them compete with our companies. And then they are taxed so their country can have good schools and infrastructure and all the rest of the benefits of the modern world, for them.

And if we do not respond in kind, then their people end up better off at the expense of our people.

As long as other countries operate for the benefit of their people, it is our job to keep up our end of the bargain as it exists and operate as a country for the benefit of our people. This means that we support our companies, and expect them to bring the money they make back here, and share the returns with us.

We The People Used To Understand Who Is The Boss

We the People (used to) understand that these companies exist for our common benefit and (used to) expect certain things back from these corporations. We (used to) expect them to provide high-quality products and services and not engage in fraud and trickery. We (used to) expect them to provide a safe and fair work environment with good wages and benefits. We (used to) expect them to be good citizens that benefit the communities where they operate. And our laws and enforcement (used to) make sure they operated that way – for our common benefit.

These understandings and expectations have disappeared. An Apple executive articulated the new corporate understanding to The New York Times. He said giant multinationals like Apple “don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems.” And to prove it, American corporations are holding $1.7 trillion in profits outside the country – just sitting there – rather than bringing that money home, paying the taxes due and then paying it out to shareholders or using it to “create jobs” with new factories, research facilities and equipment.

We The People Have Forgotten

Citizens, elected officials and corporate management have forgotten why we have corporations and who they are supposed to serve. We have instead developed a system in which corporations exist for their own sake, doing anything they want to do, and doing these things only to enrich the few who own and manage them.

There is no longer an understanding and expectation that these entities – creations entirely of We, the People — are supposed to exist for the common good of We, the People. They no longer try to provide high-quality goods and services. They no longer feel they must avoid fraud and trickery – and without enforcement of rules are able to gain advantage over others that do not operate this way. They no longer provide a safe and fair work environment with good wages and benefits. They are not good citizens that benefit the communities and country where they operate.

They are no longer under the control of We the People.

Are American Multinationals Really American?

For all intents and purposes giant “American” multinational corporations have transformed into entities with completely different interests from their American workers, customers, communities, citizens and government. These corporations are no longer operating in the interest of America or any country, while claiming the benefits of being American corporations (when it suits them.)

For example, the giant American multinational corporations are now set up and structured to avoid paying taxes here, or to any country. They set countries against each other in their hunt for low-wage labor, subsidies and advantages in markets.

Some companies are even “American” when it suits them, and not “American” when it does not. The post, Unraveling The Romney/Bain Tax Story drew on a New York Times report, Offshore Tactics Helped Increase Romneys’ Wealth. From the post:

Why is part of the same company set up based in Delaware, and part in the Cayman Islands or Luxemburg or Bermuda? Because the functions of the American-based company are those functions that avoid taxes on foreign entities, and the functions of the Caymans-based part are the functions that would have to pay US taxes if it was in the US. But in reality it is the same company — except for tax purposes! Here is the explanation of the foreign-based parts, from the Times article:

Had those funds been set up in the United States, the Romneys and other American investors would probably have been subject to certain federal taxes for their ownership of “controlled foreign corporations.” Setting up the funds in the Caymans allowed them to avoid those taxes.

Here is an explanation of the American-based parts,

Another appeal of offshore funds is that they help private equity attract investment from deep-pocketed big institutions like pension funds and university endowments. While these are generally tax-exempt, they are liable for taxes on “unrelated business taxable income” if they put money in funds that use debt financing to make investments.

So why aren’t they all just foreign-based? Why do they need to have an American-based part? One reason is that making the loans that run up the debt that enables these companies to get the interest deductions (more tax avoidance) would incur income taxes if the loans came from a foreign entity,

Beyond their tax advantages, however, offshore funds controlled by American money managers can also create new tax problems. Those funds are limited in their ability to make loans without triggering corporate income taxes — an issue for Sankaty funds. Therefore, they usually have a parallel domestic fund that makes the loans, holds them for a period before selling a portion to the offshore fund, a practice known as “season and sell.”

And, of course, the American-based entities enable the low “carried interest” tax rate that hedge fund managers enjoy. The company paying Romney can’t be foreign-based,

So-called carried interest, the cut of a fund’s investment gains earned by its managers, enjoys a favorable tax treatment. But under I.R.S. rules, carried interest cannot be derived from a corporation, like the offshore blockers used by Sankaty.

The American-based entities can buy American companies without incurring “foreign-based” obligations. Then the foreign-based entities can avoid the taxes that the American-based buyers of companies would have to pay. And the foreign-based investors can be in the foreign-based parts of the company, avoiding US tax obligations. Also American entities like pension funds can avoid US taxes they would otherwise have to pay.

To put it another way, the same company can pretend it is US-based when that is what it needs to be, and foreign-based when that is what it needs to be.

What Can We Do?

First of all, we want and need corporations, for the reasons outlines above. For our common benefit, to accomplish large-scale projects, and as a result to bring shared prosperity to our citizens.

But we have to be the boss of them. We have to understand again that We the People set up this system of corporations for our common benefit. (Why else would we set up these things?) And we have to again call ourselves a country.

Can we align the interests of these giant corporations with our national, American interest? If we cannot, they should be stripped of their American corporate privileges and be required to do the same things as other entities that are not wedded to the national interest. And then We the People can build and support American companies that are.

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Where does the Republican Party put its energy? On anything that furthers the interests of the wealthiest. Tax cuts and kicking government are right at the top of that list*. Also near the top comes blocking minimum wage increases, blocking workplace safety rules and keeping lots of people unemployed so they are desperate to take any nasty, dirty, low-paying job, etc. But next to tax cuts and keeping government from operating Republicans fight to keep unions from being able to organize because the power of working people acting together collectively begins to challenge the power of concentrated wealth that corporations represent. To this end Republicans hate and fight the Labor Department and now the new nominee for Secretary of Labor.

In The News

Republican “oppo” researchers issued a 63-page report on Thomas Perez, who President Obama has nominated to fill the vacancy for Secretary of Labor. Perez currently serves as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The report accuses Perez of being corrupt because he fought to keep civil rights law intact by trading a case involving St. Paul landlords who were renting substandard homes in low-income areas for a case accusing St. Paul of not doing enough to help minorities win contracts.

The story is circulating today, WaPo version, GOP issues critical report of labor secretary nominee Perez,

The GOP lawmakers accuse Perez of misusing his power last year to persuade the city of St. Paul, Minn., to withdraw a housing discrimination case before it could be heard by the Supreme Court. In exchange, the Justice Department agreed not to intervene in two whistleblower cases against St. Paul that could have won up to $200 million for taxpayers.

… Top Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued a report on the investigation Sunday, writing that Perez “acted professionally to advance the interests of civil rights and effectively combat the scourge of housing discrimination.” The Justice Department also defended Perez, saying litigation decisions made by the department “were in the best interests of the United States and were consistent with the department’s legal, ethical and professional responsibility obligations.”

The GOP report cites documents that suggest Perez’s decision frustrated and confused career lawyers at Justice who initially wanted to join the whistleblower cases against St. Paul. These lawyers described the department’s change of heart as “weirdness,” “ridiculous” and a case of “cover your head pingpong.”

Complicated… Perez’s deal kept the Justice Dept. out of one court case in exchange for keeping another from making it to the Supreme Court which would use it to overturn important civil rights laws 5-4.

What Republicans Say Perez Did That Was Bad

The main charge against Perez (other than being brown) is that as part of his duties in the Civil Rights Division he brokered a deal in a housing discrimination case in St. Paul, to keep the case from reaching the Supreme Court. The St. Paul case would have enabled the Supreme Court to strike down “disparate-impact theory” in civil rights a labor law, with a 5-4 vote.

The current Roberts movement-conservative majority on the Supreme Court looks for cases that enable them to maneuver 5-4 votes to strike down laws that protect citizens from billionaires and corporations (who fund the conservative movement) in various ways. Citizens United is the best example of this, it undid campaign finance laws, enabling billionaires and giant corporations to put multiple millions into getting their candidates elected at every level. The case involving Perez is one that this court could have used to further harm citizen interests with a 5-4 vote.

The Case

In the early 2000s a group of landlords were renting substandard (heat didn’t work, no locks, rotten floors, rat holes, bugs, broken pipes, etc.) housing to minorities in St. Paul. St Paul cracked down with code enforcement. The landlords sued St. Paul, claiming code enforcement would violate the Fair Housing Act because minority tenants would have less access to … nasty, substandard housing with rotted floors, rats etc.

That’s right, the slumlords sued the city arguing that if the city did code enforcement and it put them out of business minorities wouldn’t have access to nasty, substandard housing that was infested with code violations. They claimed that code enforcement violated civil right laws by potentially decreasing minority access to nasty, substandard housing.

This is exactly the kind of case Republicans love because it turns the tables against minorities, and makes the claim that the kind of businesses that scam on and prey on and take advantage of vulnerable and powerless citizens are really “performing a service.”

St. Paul’s lawyers had a duty to the city to do what they could to win for the city. They knew the Supreme Court had an interest in overturning the civil rights law that the slumlords were using to sue them, meaning they would win the case for the city. So St. Paul was taking the case to the Supreme Court even though the Court would use it to strike down civil rights laws nationally.

Perez struck a deal to avoid this outcome. This is what Republicans are accusing him of.

The Other Case

The other side of the deal Perez brokered involved a suit against St. Paul claiming the city had not been using federal funds to sufficiently help minorities get contracts and jobs with the city. The case would have collapsed if the Justice Dept. didn’t get involved, and could potentially cost the citty millions if they did. So in exchange for St. Paul not taking the other case to the Supreme Court Perez got the Justice Department to agree not to get involved.

What This Tells Us

All of this tells us that Perez understands the strategic long game that the billionaires and their giant corporations are playing, by investing in getting their people placed on the courts and Supreme Court, and how they manipulate cases to use to undermine long-standing laws that help regular people. What Perez did shows that he is there to fight for regular people, not to make a fortune by “playing along” while in a government position and then later receiving a high-paying payoff job with the corporations behind this.

Good Sources

A good source for understanding the complicated story is Adam Serwer in Mother Jones, The GOP Wants to Use This Bizarre Case to Scuttle Obama’s Most Progressive Cabinet Nominee,

The deal Perez helped cut likely prevented a landmark civil rights law from being struck down by the Roberts court. Perez’s civil rights division later used this law to secure record financial settlements against banks that discriminated against minority borrowers during the financial crisis. And Republicans were very angry about it.

Another source for a more conservative take on this is a series of posts by Sean Higgens in the Washington Examiner (note – you will be swarmed by pop-up ads):
A glimpse into how Thomas Perez operates.

More on the deal Thomas Perez cut with St. Paul.

How Thomas Perez might use ‘disparate impact’ theory as labor secretary.

*More from the list of where the Repubican Party puts its energy: keeping people from voting, keeping objective information from reaching people, keeping entrenched “incumbent” interests like oil and coal and big pharmaceutical companies from facing serious competition, etc., etc.
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The corporate/conservative effort to gut the country’s labor-law enforcement continues at full steam. Senate Republicans are blocking NLRB Board confirmations. Republican judges blocked the the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from operating until the Senate confirms Board members. Today House Republicans are moving on a bill to just shut the NLRB down.

People vs Concentrated Power

Unions mean higher wages, benefits and safer working conditions for working people. This means “labor” — i.e. you (unless you own a big company) — gets a share of the benefits of our economy. This is because unions partially (only partially) balance the power difference between individuals and giant corporations.

One person against great wealth and power rarely stands a chance. That is why We, the People formed our government of, by and for the People. We, the People acting together (collectively) can used to be able to fight back against the concentrated power of great wealth.

Similarly, when individual people come up against the concentrated power of the giant corporations alone, they are at their mercy. One person saying, “Please, Sir, can I have a raise?” doesn’t cut it. But dozens or hundreds or thousands of people acting together is collective power, which balances the equation to some degree. (Except when “trade” deals enable the giant companies to ship jobs our of the country, pitting low-wage, exploited workers against American workers, and say, “Shut up or we’ll move your job out of the country, too.”)

The right to form a union, bargain collectively and engage in legitimate union activities without fear of retaliation or intimidation is the law of the land, and Wall Street and the large corporations don’t like it one bit. Not one bit at all.

NLRB And The Law

Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) in 1935. It’s the law.

Take a look at Section 1 of the NLRA. In summary, it states that it is the position the position of We the People, (a.k.a. government,) that lack of bargaining power by workers against corporations leads to Depressions (we call them recessions now) — the result of depressed purchasing power. And it leads to strikes, which disrupt commerce. Therefore, it is the policy of the United States to encourage collective bargaining.

According to NLRB :

The NLRA protects the rights of employees to:

Form or join a union

Bargain collectively for a contract that sets wages, benefits, hours, and other working conditions

Discuss wages, working conditions or union organizing with co-workers or a union

Act with co-workers to improve working conditions by raising complaints with an employer or a government agency

Strike and picket their employer, depending on the purpose or means of the action

Choose not to join a union or engage in union activities

Organize coworkers to decertify a union
If employees choose a union as their bargaining representative, the union and employer must bargain in good faith in a genuine effort to reach a binding agreement setting out terms and conditions of employment. The union is required to fairly represent employees in bargaining and enforcing the agreement.

Employers may not:

Prohibit employees from discussing a union during non-work time, or from distributing union literature during non-work time in non-work areas, such as parking lots or break rooms

Question employees about their union support or activities in a manner that discourages them from engaging in that activity

Fire, demote, transfer, reduce hours or take other adverse action against employees who join or support a union or act with co-workers for mutual aid and protection, or who refuse to engage in such activity

Threaten to close their workplace if employees form or join a union

Promise or grant promotions, pay raises, or other benefits to discourage or encourage union support

Prohibit employees from wearing union hats, buttons, t-shirts, and pins in the workplace except under special circumstances

Spy on or videotape peaceful union activities and gatherings

Union Power Decline Means Wage Decline

Fighting labor-law enforcement so the big companies can act with impunity (and fighting for other restrictions on unions like “right-to-work” laws in the states) is about one thing and one thing only: driving down the wages and benefits that working people receive.

Trade agreements and weakening of labor laws has resulted in weakened unions. The result of weakened unions is explained in the post 40% Of Americans Now Make Less Than 1968 Minimum Wage,

The chart shows that wages used to go up as productivity went up, but in the 1970s they decoupled. Productivity kept going up but wages stagnated.

That is what happened when trade agreements broke the ability of unions to ask for a fair share of the proceeds. Businesses started moving jobs out of the country to low-wage, “business-friendly” non-democracies, and said to people who wanted raises “shut up or we’ll move your job out of the country, too.” This “decoupled” productivity increases from potential wage increases.

So the benefits of our economy started going to just a few people, instead of being spread around. The post, Is This Where The (Middle-Class) Money Went? tells that story:

Now, here’s another chart. This chart shows that financial-sector and non-financial-sector compensation used to rise together, but in the late 70′s / early 80′s they decoupled. Financial-sector compensation took off, while non-financial-sector compensation did not.

Recent Timeline

January, 2010, Republicans continue to prevent NLRB nominees from confirmation. NY Times, Labor Panel Is Stalled by Dispute on Nominee,

For two years, the board, which polices the labor laws governing unionized workers and unionization drives, has limped along with just two members, rather than its full complement of five, leaving many cases unresolved because of a 1-to-1 deadlock.

January, 2010, Republican Supreme Court says NLRB can’t rule without 3 Board members. Think Progress: Labor Board Hobbled By Senate Obstruction Has Hundreds Of Cases Invalidated By Supreme Court,

Today, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court invalidated more than 500 cases decided by the National Labor Relations Board. For more than two years, the five person board only had two sitting members, due to Congressional obstruction of its nominees, and the Court decided that the two-person board did not have legal authority to issue rulings.

February, 2010, Senate Republicans block NLRB nominees: U.S. Senate Filibuster Blocks Becker Nomination to NLRB.

January, 2012, Obama (finally) makes recess appointments to get NLRB functioning, Obama’s Recess Appointments: It’s Called Governing,

Republicans have been blocking confirmation of the President’s nominees to government agencies, the courts, even keeping ambassadors from being confirmed. They are not objecting to the nominees themselves, they are trying to keep the government from operating as it is supposed to. Klein calls all of this this “loophole-driven minority obstruction.” People are calling this “nullification.” “Nullification” was the pre-Civil War “states rights” practice of Southern states simply ignoring federal laws. The Republicans are again engaging in nullification, on behalf of the 1%.

In particular, Republicans were blocking nominations to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in order to prevent these agencies from doing their job enforcing laws protecting people from scams and exploitation in exchange for a cut of the take from the scams and exploitation.

January, 2013, Republican judges rule that recess appointments are unconstitutional,

President Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board violated the Constitution, a federal court of appeals ruled today, also raising questions about Obama’s pick for head of the Consumer Financial Protection Board.

The court called the appointment of three members to the National Labor Relations Board in January 2012 “an unconstitutional act,” because it took place when the Senate was in an “intrasession” recess, rather than an “intersession” recess.

Now:

Politico: Obama tries to fill out NLRB,

President Obama named three nominees to the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday in an effort to fill out the five-member, bipartisan board that has become the center of a dispute over recess appointments.

… “With these nominations there will be five nominees to the NLRB, both Republicans and Democrats, awaiting Senate confirmation,” Obama said in a statement. “I urge the Senate to confirm them swiftly so that this bipartisan board can continue its important work on behalf of the American people.”

Reuters, House committee debates bill to pause NLRB,

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is considering a bill that would stop the board from taking official action until either the Supreme Court rules on the D.C. Circuit’s decision or the Senate confirms a quorum of the NLRB.

WaPo, Obama nominates new NLRB members as House threatens to halt board actions,

The status of the board has been in limbo since a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in January that Obama exceeded his constitutional authority by appointing three of its members while lawmakers were on break in January 2012, thus bypassing the usual Senate confirmation process.

The House is expected to vote on legislation this week that would prohibit the board from issuing decisions until the fate of Obama’s so-called recess appointments is known.

So this battle continues. Republicans, working for the giant corporations, are trying to nullify US labor law in order to keep our wages and benefits down. They are filibustering nominees to the NLRB and their “judges” are acting in unison to keep the NLRB from operating. We are all living the results. Our economy is living the results. Will we let them succeed?
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For years now Senate Republicans have been filibustering … everything. At the end of last year there was an effort to convince Democrats in the Senate of the need to reform the filibuster so things We the People need to get done could get done. At the last minute, however, this effort was scuttled by House Majority Leader Harry Reid who instead made a gentleman’s agreement with Republican leader Mitch McConnell. So now Republicans are filibustering … everything. And Reid, in a strongly-worded statement, threatened to issue a sternly-worded letter.

Silent Obstruction

In the last few years pretty much everything We the People were hoping to accomplish to make our lives better was filibustered by Senate Republicans. So many bills and nominees that were so important to us … the American Jobs Act, a terrible cost. The Bring Jobs Home Act and the Ending Offshoring Act to end tax incentives for sending jobs and factories out of the country, the Public Option, the DREAM Act, the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act, the Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act, and the DISCLOSE Act so we could at least know what companies and countries were bribing our politicians. … Just so much cost…

Public Doesn’t Know

The public doesn’t even know that so many important acts and nominees have been filibustered! The public believes a filibuster is Senators taling all night, but rules changes allowed Senators to block bills without doing anything. The media did not report these obstructions as filibusters, only saying things like “the Senate failed to pass a bill to…” or “Senate rules requiring 60 votes …” or, most destructive to democracy, “Democrats failed to gain -passage of …” The public had no idea what was happening, no idea of the extent of the obstruction, and no way to know who to hold accountable for the failure of government to accomplish anything. Democracy can not function without an informed citizenry.

Make Them Talk

So after years of obstruction and non-functioning government it was proposed to change the rules and “make them talk.” The idea was to restore the filibuster to make Senators just talk — exactly what the public thinks the filibuster rule already is. There was an all-out effort to get this done, and a sufficient number of Senators appeared to be on board. But in January, Reid scuttled the effort to Fix the Filibuster,

“I’m not personally, at this stage, ready to get rid of the 60-vote threshold,” Reid (D-Nev.) told me this morning, referring to the number of votes needed to halt a filibuster. “With the history of the Senate, we have to understand the Senate isn’t and shouldn’t be like the House.”

Of course, if Republicans take the Senate their very first act will be to end the filibuster so Democrats can’t use it.

So Here We Are

So here we are. Republicans are still filibustering and obstructing everything and everyone. Government continues to be broken. The will of the public continues to be thwarted and the public’s faith in government and democracy to solve their problems further recedes.

But now Harry Reid is fed up! He issued a strongly-worded statement in impassioned floor debate!

And there are rumors that it is possible that he might resort to sending Republicans a strongly-worded letter. So matters are well in hand.

A sternly worded letter and hours of impassioned floor debate! That’ll show ‘em!

If Harry Reid keeps this up I might have no choice but to issue forth an angry tweet.

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